Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan as a first language, the eleventh-most widely spoken in India, and the third-most spoken native language in the Indian Subcontinent. Punjabi is the fourth-most spoken language in the United Kingdom and third-most spoken native language in Canada. The language also has a significant presence in the United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The influence of Punjabi as a cultural language in the Indian Subcontinent is increasing day by day due to Bollywood. Most Bollywood movies now have Punjabi vocabulary mixed in, along with a few songs fully sung in Punjabi. At any point in time, Punjabi songs in Bollywood movies now account for more than 50% of the top of the charts listings.

Punjabi’s first notable win came in February 2007 at Kempton Park Racecourse in Surrey, England where he won the Adonis Juvenile Novices' Hurdle, a Grade 2 National Hunt race. However, it wasn’t until 2008 when Punjabi started to make a name for himself, when he became the first horse to legitimately contend for the WBX sponsored Triple Crown of Hurdling. The Triple Crown of Hurdling awards a £1,000,000 bonus to the horse that wins the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle, the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton Park and the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, England in the same racing season.
Entering the 2008-2009 racing season, those involved with Punjabi believed their horse was a contender to win the Triple Crown of Hurdling. In early December 2008, jockey Barry Geraghty and Punjabi narrowly beat out Sublimity to win the Fighting Fifth Hurdle. Later that month, Punjabi was running well but fell two fences from the finish line at the Christmas Hurdle. The race was won by Harchibald. In March 2009, Punjabi held off a late charge by Celestial Halo to win the Champion Hurdle in a dramatic photo finish. After the win at the Champion Hurdle, trainer Nicky Henderson lamented at the fact that the fall in the Christmas Hurdle could have been "the most expensive fall in history."

Software

Computer software also called a program or simply software is any set of instructions that directs a computer to perform specific tasks or operations. Computer software consists of computer programs, libraries and related non-executable data (such as online documentation or digital media). Computer software is non-tangible, contrasted with computer hardware, which is the physical component of computers. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be realistically used without the other.

At the lowest level, executable code consists of machine language instructions specific to an individual processor—typically a central processing unit (CPU). A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. For example, an instruction may change the value stored in a particular storage location in the computer—an effect that is not directly observable to the user. An instruction may also (indirectly) cause something to appear on a display of the computer system—a state change which should be visible to the user. The processor carries out the instructions in the order they are provided, unless it is instructed to "jump" to a different instruction, or interrupted.

Plot summary

Software introduces Cobb Anderson as a retired computer scientist who was once tried for treason for figuring out how to give robots artificial intelligence and free will, creating the race of boppers. By 2020, they have created a complex society on the Moon, where the boppers developed because they depend on super-cooled superconducting circuits. In that year, Anderson is a pheezer — a freaky geezer, Rucker's depiction of elderly Baby Boomers— living in poverty in Florida and terrified because he lacks the money to buy a new artificial heart to replace his failing, secondhand one.

As the story begins, Anderson is approached by a robot duplicate of himself who invites him to the Moon to be given immortality. Meanwhile, the series' other main character, Sta-Hi Mooney the 1st — born Stanley Hilary Mooney Jr. — a 25-year-old cab driver and "brainsurfer", is kidnapped by a gang of serial killers known as the Little Kidders who almost eat his brain. When Anderson and Mooney travel to the Moon together at the boppers' expense, they find that these events are closely related: the "immortality" given to Anderson turns out to be having his mind transferred into software via the same brain-destroying technique used by the Little Kidders.